Month: February 2017

We recently visited the Golconda Fort near Hyderabad, India where we had glimpses and insights into the lives of people who lived centuries ago. Nancy’s A Photo A Week theme this week is of Details – exactly what I was looking for to showcase some of the interesting things we saw:)

This is the entrance to the Golconda Fort (of Kohinoor diamond fame). This path was meant for kings and nobles but our path lies elsewhere. Just alongside (on the left to be precise):

A view of the barracks where the soldiers were housed. Pretty barren and lackluster do you think? Let’s look around.

The entrance to the barracks – actually to be honest I took this photo because of the tree 😉

On the other side are the shelves for soldiers to keep their artillery and other stuff.

See that protrusion with a hole? That was for holding flame torches for light.

Another flame torch holder on the other side. The walls look rather bare and utilitarian don’t they? As I mentioned, this section was meant for soldiers. The Royalty didn’t much care for the fumes of the flame torches. Besides, the flames charred the walls which again offended their sensibilities. Hence they had other ideas.

The intricate decorations on the inner palace walls – which was originally diamond studded. A single candle was enough to light up the whole room.

The Royalty lived in luxury and left no stone unturned their comfort. This came to light when the walls broke revealing water pipes for carrying hot and cold water to the city and fortress built on a granite hill that is 120 meters (480 ft) high.

The water was heated in a wood furnace and pumped up using hand cranks. Phew!

Hope you enjoyed the detailed tour.

Thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts.

Have a super week.

Cee’s black and white photo challenge theme for last week was Music. I am worse than late this week, but in my defense it’s been a super busy week plus I was traveling. Hunting through my archives I could find only one photo, which fit the bill. Ironical since my house is littered with musical instruments – guitar, Mohan veena, sitar, piano, tabla and I distinctly remember buying a mouth organ too.

Before you get the wrong idea I must add that I am quite tone-deaf but my son has the ‘feel’ for music – and I think he plays very well. 🙂 Well no, I am not really being partial – he won a music scholarship during his school days. But what I really wanted to share with you was the way he was introduced to music. Since I am not really musically inclined, I would have never thought of pushing him towards music. But fate has a way of taking the right turns and sort of forcing your hand.

When my son was about seven years old, he suddenly turned obsessive about me. It was winter days and it would get dark by 5 pm. Quite all of a sudden, he started calling me up at the office demanding that I come home immediately. Once he even dragged his octogenarian grandfather to the campus gate to escort me home. I tried to get to the bottom of the matter and set up a minor grilling session.

I saw the glimmerings of light when he muttered, “Bad things happen in car parks.”

Darn it – that’s what comes out of encouraging children to read the newspaper.

Some urgent damage control was needed so I began hunting for some suitable distraction. But what? I had not time to take him anywhere for anything. It would have to be something at home.

“Would you like to learn music?” I asked having bumped into a music teacher at a friend’s house.

He wore a thoughtful look. “Does he have a mustache?”

Of all the things!

“Hmm. Not sure. I think so.”

“Okay.” He went back to his comic. “But only if he has a mustache.”

I wonder if these guys have mustaches?

Or more importantly did they have any such preconditions before they started learning music 😀 How about you – do you know of any one with peculiar preconditions to do doing something? Do share 🙂

Thanks for visiting!